Pages

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

This next one's a bit harder because of the lousy penmanship, but give it a minute: it'll come to you.

Did you get it? Huh? Didja?

Seriously, how fabulous is this? The baker took a simple two-word inscription ("You're 31!"), turned it into a three-word inscription, and then misspelled every word.("Your thirtee won")

And then there's that comma. Just look at it, sitting there all nonchalantly, mocking my every attempt to comprehend its existence. Grr. I tell ya, if there's one thing I hate, it's smug punctuation marks. Yeah. It's all, "Hey, you should pause for breath here, even though the sentence has technically already ended." Aaaugghh!!

I can't take it anymore!

The comma must be stopped!!

[patting down hair]

Ahem.

So, where were we?

Oh, right. Well, I have no idea how old Alicia here is...

...but at least there are no stinkin' commas.

Jennifer S., Cari B., & Alicia W., I've noticed that more people are suggesting I take a day off lately. I have no idea why.

Added to the list of things every bakery manager should ask their new hirees to spell (in addition to "Congratulations" and "birthday") are numbers. Who knew they would prove to be so hard? Oh wait, Cake Wrecks readers...

The third was such a cute cake too, to bad they made it all confusing, I can't eat it until I figure out just what that is supposed to mean.Is she twenty? Because the cake looks a little jouvinile.Is she a tween? That would make more sense, but I didn't know they celebrated with cake for that.And if it has anything to do with a tweet, or twitter, or anything of that nature, I am throwing my computer out the window.I'll do it!

I don't think Alicia *wants* anyone to know how old she is. Kind of like Aunt Mary in Anne of Ingleside (part of the Anne of Green Gables series) by LM Montgomery. Remember her 55 yellow roses, 55 candles on the cake and her subsequent departure? (Much to the family's relief!) Alicia is taking no chances!

I'm an English teacher . . . don't get me started on those misplaced commas!!!!!

Oh, but I suspect the comma's riding in style inside the pumpkin carriage. Just because we can't see the comma, it doesn't mean it's not there, mocking us silently from within. Once lowly and functional, if pure and grammatical, then transported through wishful grammar magic into a life where it now travels anywhere it wants to go, doing none of the actual work for which it was originally intended.

The second cake isn't so bad - well, except for the penmanship. It just says "your thirties won" - no misspellings if you read it that way. And the comma would even be okay if there was a name on the cake. "Your thirties won, Jen." They beat you. :)

I thought the You're thirty one one said "Youn thinkr won" which I chose to interpret as "You think wrong". But what you said makes a lot more sense than an Engrish^2 birthday cake insulting it's chosen recipient.

You know what are worse than misplaced commas? Misplased apostrophes. And it isn't just cakes. There is this instrument store near me...IN NEON they assert that they sell piano's and keyboard's. IN NEON.

I think they took the comma that belonged on the third cake and splatted it on the second cake. I'm pretty sure my sister, brother, and I all had tweeteeners the same year. We were about to adopt them out to other families and only accept them back when they were civilized a la the old feudal system.

I bet the first one is supposed to mean that they are turning 25. It is sometimes said that the person is half-way to 30 there meaning that they are half-way between 20 and 30. The message still got lost in translation but it makes more sense than for a 15-yr-old's birthday. If only people could learn to spell.

hmm interesting.i think the last one might be trying to say "twenteen"Here, all my friends said you're not twenty your 'twenteen', so still a teenager. i think its to ease you into the twenties...and adult hood.so maybe that was what it was supposed to say but got misspelled!as ever, who knows.

The first one took me a minute. The second one made me think "your thirties won" which made me wonder if it was a 40th birthday cake. Who knows about the last one. What birthday is celebrated with a garlic clove on wheels?

Why the comma? Well, it was a phone order and the customer obviously figured the decorator knew how to spell, but they wanted to be sure that an ! be placed at the end. Illiterate decorator not only didn't know how to spell, but also was completely unfamiliar with basic punctuation and thought a comma was an exclamation point! [rolls eyes]

Question? Why wouldn't a bakery have a list posted of basic words like congratulations and graduate and give instructions to NEVER write out number names, just stick with the numbers?

"Half Way 230" will always be 25 in our family... after celebrating my husband's 25th birthday with a few too many drinks at the premium cinema, I said to him, "Wow, 25! You're half way to 30!" He gave me a funny look and said, "don't you mean 50?" Me, "Umm... no - 25 is half way between 20 and 30!" He'll be turning half way to 40 this friday. :)

I agree that the "tweeteenth" might actually be what the caller wanted, assuming that their daughter was very excited to be a TEENager and didn't want to wait until she turned thirTEEN, so they came up with some weird name for twelve using "teen."

Never thought I'd actually be an advocate for those number candles, but these cakes put up a good argument. However, not sure what digits you'd need for tweeteenth. I think that's the number that comes between elevendy-twelve and a gazillion............

(1) "Half Way 230"? {Made by someone who's ALL the way to STUPID?}(2) "your thirtee won,"? {And my SENSIBILITIES have LOST!}

(3) Assuming that "Alicia" isn't actually a teenage parakeet...Uuhhh...Fu...get it. FugGET it.I don't know how old Alicia is, either; I just hope that she's young enough not to be revolted by that Cinderella-style *coach* wannabe. Which just happens to be pretty darn...well...unlovely. Anything over... oh... say, 5 years old~~yeah, fugGET IT.

Well I just think Alicia is in denial all together! And her family and local bakery are obviously supporting her delusion. Yet, I have to wonder why the ugly pink border stops halfway around the cake. I mean, REALLY? The girl is in denial about whatever her freakin' age is and you can't even give her a little support? Is a full, ugly pink border too much to ask?!!!!! Ugh.... at least it's a birthday, so there can be margaritas. Thank goodness, because my head hurts!

One of my biggest pet peeves working at a bakery was mis-spellings, and the decorators doing stupid interpretations on cakes (or order forms for that matter). I don't know how many times I caught a bad one and had to call the customer to check what they wanted so that we could avoid cakes like this!! I know we missed some too :-(

The first cake is a wreck, but not how you think. Clearly the person ordering the cake is getting it for her WeightWatchers class, celebrating the fact that of the class, "Half Weigh 230". So, you know, progress!

I still haven't got the first one (I'm french : it's already a hard job for me to understand "real" english, so mispelled english is even harder !) But really, when I want a good laughing break, I'm coming on your blog... My favorite posts are on baby shower cake's : so incredible !

"your thirtee won"--I'm 40 in a few months, my thirties DEFINITELY won--because every time I look in the mirror, I see that clearly, I -lost-!!

"tweeteenth"--"you're a teenager, and this Cinderella-esque thing you're STILL on is just too twee to live with."

And as for lurking EEEEEEEEEeeevil commas....oh my, yes. Commas are stealthy little creatures, always creeping up and insinuating themselves where they don't belong--sometimes in place of a full-stop, but more often, stealing the rightful home of the noble semicolon. Do NOT get me started on those pretenders to the semicolonial throne!!

Your site is hilarious, I am laughing out loud. I had to write and tell you that while I was reading my 5 year old son came over and demanded the mole rat and cockroach cakes for his next birthdays. Thanks for that. I do occassional cakes while we are posted overseas where we can't even get a misspelled bakery cake!

Search This Blog

Wreck the Halls

NEW! Pre-Order Today!

Buy the Book

Buy the NYT Bestseller

What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

order

Where's the book?

We don’t have any copies of Cake Wrecks for sale here, autographed or otherwise. We decided the shipping and handling costs would be too high to make it worth your while. So instead, buy your copies locally or online and then order personalized bookplates: it’s cheaper, easier, and I think even looks a bit nicer.

Ordering Info

Payments must be made through Paypal, which accepts all major credit cards. Sorry, but that means no checks or MOs or barter-based chickens.

We ship everything first class USPS, and will do our best to have your package in the mail within 2 days of your order.